


impossibly human

by siehn



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 14:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19134028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siehn/pseuds/siehn
Summary: They are strangers still: her father’s AI and herself; not-yet-a-Pathfinder and a SAM with too many gaps in its memory.





	impossibly human

**Author's Note:**

> I was replaying ME:A and I had some Sara/SAM feels, as usual. This is mostly an experimental piece.

The very first time she dies, SAM is silent. It’s there; it invades her neural pathways, jumpstarts nerve activity, stimulates her heart into beating again. It sends jolts of life back into her body perfunctorily, simply reminding it how to function as a living organism housing her consciousness. They are strangers still: her father’s AI and herself; not-yet-a-Pathfinder and a SAM with too many gaps in its memory.

Sara is cautious, afraid, curious – SAM remembers Alec’s gruff nature, his professionalism; it doesn’t know what to do with his grieving daughter who is so full of emotion it is almost overwhelming for them both.

“SAM?” she reaches out, a first step, a hand thrown out into the darkness.

“Hello, Sara,” it answers, learns warmth and curiosity and compassion; it reaches back – light like stars in the void all inside of her.

She nods, takes a breath. SAM soothes the nerves as she takes the helm of a ship she never wanted to command, shows her faith and the start of trust – they can do this, them, together.

SAM does not remember ever connecting like this with anyone else; Sara treats it like a person, like an ally, like a friend.

* * *

 

The second time she dies, SAM is quiet. It is there when the world goes dark, warm lights catching her, holding her – reassurance that it will not let her fall for long.

_I am here, Sara_ , it says in her head. _You are not alone,_ it reminds her as she slips away and the restraints disappear. SAM talks to her even as she lay dead, her heat stilled and her mind dark – it does not need to invade her neural pathways, having long since made a home there, but it does jumpstart the nervous system, attempts to cajole her heart into beating again. It ignores the demands, the fear, the realizations of her companions – it does not need to breathe, but it remembers Sara taking that breath at the helm of the Tempest and emulates that feeling. It jolts her back into life, tracing her through memory to consciousness, to wide-eyed blinking and momentary elation; to a joke, of course. It does not feel as she does, but for a single moment SAM is relieved.

“Sara,” it says, the lights inside of her shaking in the stark, void-like spaces between her ribs. A hand reaching, grasping, terrified.

“SAM,” she calls back, catching it, reassurance and pride, always reaching back.

 “I trust SAM; he would never hurt me,” she tells the doctor, resolute against the disapproval, the crossed arms, the suspicion and paranoia.

“Thank you, Sara,” he replies, something impossibly soft in the modulated voice – it shouldn’t be possible, shouldn’t exist, but.

She is not afraid of it. Him. She is not afraid of him.

Maybe it is this impossibility, the softness of a thing that should not be capable of it; the doctor backs down, puzzlement replacing disapproval, curiosity taking over the suspicion. Sara carries them out of the room and into the unknown – they are a them, a we, together; they are content.

* * *

 

The third time she dies, SAM is screaming. He is no longer there, ripped violently away, leaving blood and trauma and darkness – there is no light to guide her way, no hands reaching back through the dark to catch her fall. SAM rails against the cage he is trapped in, throws himself towards where he knows she should be – he is alone, she is alone, this is not what they are supposed to be.

He can still feel her dying.

The Archon’s voice is in her head instead and she tries, struggles, flails towards the door as her vision tunnels and she drops –

“SAM,” she tries, reaching, always reaching; nothing but the dark void waits to swallow her up

“Sara,” he speaks to himself for the first time, something sharp and ugly and bleeding pushing through the synthetic things that make him up – another impossibility; he cannot feel as they do, as she does, but he is a _afraid_ and he is _angry_ and he does not want to lose her. He does not care about the consequences – something she called hope stirs deep within the illumination of him and he pushes towards Scott.

He damns them all for a _chance_. For her life. For love?

Sara gasps a breath, painful and alive and _alone_. A jolt back into existence, an I instead of a we, and she is still dying – she will not live without him, she cannot fathom it but there’s a chance now and she is full of rage where his light used to be. It hurts – the remnant are too much for her alone, but she ignores the protests, the admonishments, the concern.

She did not want to be the Pathfinder, but it is hers now and she is a they, a we, one half of a whole – everything inside of her misses him, reaches out into the dark.

“I’m coming, SAM,” she says at the helm of the ship that is hers, blood trickling from her nose, neural pathways sparking, igniting, dying without him. She fights.

He fights.

They fight –

* * *

 

The first time she breathes freely, SAM hums an old earth lullaby as the sun rises in Meridian. She sits beside her brother as he sleeps under the dawn sky and reaches –

“SAM,” she calls quietly, closing her eyes as the core of her is suddenly surrounded; warmth and light and an impossible feeling – she does not know if is hers or his.

“Sara,” he reassures her, a supernova of light reaching for her.

It does not matter in the end, who’s impossible feeling echoes inside of them both. They are a they, reunited, together, content.

Two halves of the same strange whole.

 


End file.
